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1 less
less [les]1. adjectivea. (in amount, size, degree) moins (de)• can't you let me have it for less? vous ne pouvez pas me faire un prix ?• less of your cheek! (inf) assez d'impertinence !• less noise please! moins de bruit s'il vous plaît !• a sum less than £100 une somme de moins de 100 livres• I was told the news by the bishop, no less (inf) c'est l'évêque en personne, s'il vous plaît (inf), qui m'a appris la nouvelle► no less + than• it costs no less than £100 ça ne coûte pas moins de 100 livres• with no less skill than enthusiasm avec non moins d'habileté que d'enthousiasme► nothing less than rien moins que2. adverba. moins► less... than• the problem is less one of money than of personnel c'est moins un problème d'argent qu'un problème de personnel► no less... than• the less he works the less he earns moins il travaille, moins il gagne• the less you worry about it the better moins vous vous ferez du souci à ce sujet, mieux ça vaudra3. preposition• less 10% moins 10 %* * *[les] 1.(comparative of little) quantifier moins de2.pronoun moinsa sum of not less than £1,000 — une somme qui s'élève au moins à 1000 livres sterling
it's an improvement, but less of one than I had hoped — c'est un progrès, mais pas au point que j'aurais espéré
£100 and not a penny less! — cent livres et pas un centime de moins!
3.the less said about it the better — moins on en parle, mieux ça vaut
adverb moinsthe more I see him, the less I like him — plus je le vois, moins je l'aime
no less than 85% — au moins 85%
4.they live in Kensington, no less! — ils habitent à Kensington, rien que ça!
preposition moins5.less 15% discount — moins 15% de remise
less and less adverbial phrase de moins en moins -
2 perfect
B adj1 ( flawless) [arrangement, behaviour, blend, condition, copy, crime, example, French, health, match, performance, shape, score, technique, weather, world] parfait (for pour) ; [choice, holiday, moment, name, opportunity, place, partner, solution] idéal (for pour) ; [hostess] exemplaire ; she is perfect for the part/the job c'est la personne idéale pour le rôle/ce travail ; that screw will be perfect for the job cette vis fera parfaitement l'affaire ; that recording is less than perfect cet enregistrement laisse franchement à désirer ; that jacket is a perfect fit cette veste va parfaitement ; to do sth with perfect timing faire qch au bon moment ; everything is perfect tout est parfait ; ‘all right?’-‘perfect! ’ ‘ça va?’-‘parfait!’ ;2 ( total) [stranger, fool] parfait (before n) ; [pest] véritable (before n) ; to have a perfect right to do avoir parfaitement le droit de faire ;3 Ling the perfect tense le parfait.C vtr perfectionner. -
3 usual
A ○ n the usual la même chose que d'habitude ; ‘what did he say?’-‘oh, the usual’ ‘qu'est-ce qu'il a dit?’-‘oh, toujours la même chose’ ; your usual, sir? ( in bar) comme d'habitude, monsieur?B adj [attitude, behaviour, form, procedure, problem, route, place, time] habituel/-elle ; [word, term] usuel/-elle ; available at the usual price disponible au prix habituel ; roast beef with all the usual trimmings un rôti de bœuf avec la garniture traditionnelle ; it is usual for sb to do c'est normal pour qn de faire ; they left earlier than was usual for them ils sont partis plus tôt que d'habitude ; it is usual to do, the usual practice is to do il est d'usage de faire ; they did/said all the usual things ils ont fait/dit tout ce qu'il est d'usage de faire/dire ; she was her usual cheerful self elle était gaie, comme d'habitude ; as usual comme d'habitude ; ‘business as usual’ ‘la vente continue’ ; it was business as usual at the school on travaillait comme d'habitude à l'école ; as usual with such accidents comme toujours dans ces accidents ; as is usual at this time of year/at these events comme il est d'usage à cette époque de l'année/dans ces occasions ; more/less than usual plus/moins que d'habitude ; he is better prepared/less awkward than usual il est mieux préparé/moins mal à l'aise que d'habitude ; as usual with Max, everything has to be perfect! comme d'habitude avec Max, tout doit être parfait! -
4 would
would [wʊd]1. modal verba.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When would is used to form the conditional, the French conditional is used.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I wouldn't worry, if I were you à ta place, je ne m'inquiéterais pas• to my surprise, he agreed -- I never thought he would à ma grande surprise, il a accepté -- je ne l'aurais jamais pensé• who would have thought it? qui l'aurait pensé ?• I said I'd go, so I'm going j'ai dit que j'irais, alors j'y vais• I said I'd go, so I went j'avais dit que j'irais, alors j'y suis allé━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• if you would come with me, I'd go to see him si vous vouliez bien m'accompagner, j'irais le voir━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━would you wait here please! attendez ici s'il vous plaît !• would you close the window please voulez-vous fermer la fenêtre, s'il vous plaît► would you like ( = do you want)would you like some tea? voulez-vous du thé ?• would you like to go for a walk? est-ce que vous aimeriez faire une promenade ?• 50 years ago the streets would be empty on Sundays il y a 50 ans, les rues étaient vides le dimanche• I saw him come out of the shop -- when would this be? je l'ai vu sortir du magasin -- quand ?d. (inevitability) you would go and tell her! évidemment tu es allé le lui dire !• it would have to rain! évidemment il fallait qu'il pleuve !e. (conjecture) it would have been about 8 o'clock when he came il devait être 8 heures à peu près quand il est venu2. modifier* * *[wʊd, wəd]Note: When would is used with a verb in English to form the conditional tense, would + verb is translated by the present conditional of the appropriate verb in French and would have + verb by the past conditional of the appropriate verb: I would do it if I had time = je le ferais si j'avais le temps; I would have done it if I had had time = je l'aurais fait si j'avais eu le temps; he said he would fetch the car = il a dit qu'il irait chercher la voitureFor more examples, particular usages and all other uses of would see the entry below1) (in sequence of past tenses, in reported speech)if we'd left later we would have missed the train — si nous étions partis plus tard nous aurions raté le train
wouldn't it be nice if... — ce serait bien si...
they couldn't find anyone who would take the job — ils n'arrivaient pas à trouver quelqu'un qui accepte le poste
5) (expressing desire, preference)switch off the radio, would you? — éteins la radio, tu veux bien?
8) ( when giving advice)9) ( expressing exasperation)‘he denies it’ - ‘well he would, wouldn't he?’ — ‘il le nie’ - ‘évidemment!’
‘she put her foot in it (colloq)’ - ‘she would!’ — ‘elle a mis les pieds dans le plat (colloq)’ - ‘tu m'étonnes!’
10) ( expressing an assumption)let's see, that would be his youngest son — voyons, ça doit être son plus jeune fils
11) (indicating habitual event or behaviour in past: used to) -
5 BE
be [bi:]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. link verb3. modal verb6. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. link verba. être• who is that? -- it's me! qui est-ce ? -- c'est moi !• if I were you I would refuse si j'étais vous, je refuserais━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The following translations use ce + être because they contain an article or possessive in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► No article is used in French, unless the noun is qualified by an adjective.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• how are you? comment allez-vous ?d. ( = cost) coûter• how much is it? combien ça coûte ?e. ( = equal) fairef.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• to be cold/hot/hungry/thirsty/ashamed/right/wrong avoir froid/chaud/faim/soif/honte/raison/tort━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Note how French makes the person, not the part of the body, the subject of the sentence in the following.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━g. (with age) avoir• how old is he? quel âge a-t-il ?► to be + -ing━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► French does not distinguish between simple and continuous actions as much as English does.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I'm coming! j'arrive !• what have you been doing this week? qu'est-ce que tu as fait cette semaine ?• will you be seeing her tomorrow? est-ce que vous allez la voir demain ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► être en train de + infinitive emphasizes that one is in the middle of the action.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I haven't got time, I'm cooking the dinner je n'ai pas le temps, je suis en train de préparer le repas━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The imperfect tense is used for continuous action in the past.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► have/had been +... for/since━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► French uses the present and imperfect where English uses the perfect and past perfect.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I'd been at university for six weeks when my father got ill j'étais à l'université depuis six semaines quand mon père est tombé malade• he's a friend of yours, isn't he? c'est un ami à toi, n'est-ce pas ?• she wasn't happy, was she? elle n'était pas heureuse, n'est-ce pas ?• so it's all done, is it? tout est fait, alors ?• you're not ill, are you? tu n'es pas malade j'espère ?c. (in tag responses) they're getting married -- oh are they? ils vont se marier -- ah bon ?• he's going to complain about you -- oh is he? il va porter plainte contre toi -- ah vraiment ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• he's always late, isn't he? -- yes, he is il est toujours en retard, n'est-ce pas ? -- oui• is it what you expected? -- no it isn't est-ce que tu t'attendais à ça ? -- non━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The past participle in French passive constructions agrees with the subject.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The passive is used less in French than in English. It is often expressed by on + active verb.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• it is said that... on dit que...━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The reflexive can be used to describe how something is usually done.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━3. modal verb► am/are/is to + infinitivea. ( = will)• now the old lady has died, her house is to be sold maintenant que la vieille dame est décédée, sa maison va être mise en venteb. ( = must) you are to follow these instructions exactly tu dois suivre ces instructions scrupuleusementc. ( = should) he is to be pitied il est à plaindre• not to be confused with... à ne pas confondre avec...d. ( = be destined to) this was to have serious repercussions cela devait avoir de graves répercussionse. ( = can) these birds are to be found all over the world on trouve ces oiseaux dans le monde entiera. être ; ( = take place) avoir lieu• he is there at the moment, but he won't be there much longer il est là en ce moment mais il ne va pas rester très longtemps► there is/are ( = there exist(s)) il y a• here you are at last! te voilà enfin !• here you are! ( = take this) tiens (or tenez) !b. ► to have been (to a place)• where have you been? où étais-tu passé ?a. (weather, temperature) faire• it's fine/cold/dark il fait beau/froid/nuit• it's windy/foggy il y a du vent/du brouillard• it was then we realized that... c'est alors que nous nous sommes rendu compte que...• it was they who suggested that... ce sont eux qui ont suggéré que...• why is it that she is so popular? pourquoi a-t-elle tant de succès ?6. compounds* * *noun: abrév bill of exchange -
6 be
be [bi:]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. link verb3. modal verb6. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. link verba. être• who is that? -- it's me! qui est-ce ? -- c'est moi !• if I were you I would refuse si j'étais vous, je refuserais━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The following translations use ce + être because they contain an article or possessive in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► No article is used in French, unless the noun is qualified by an adjective.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• how are you? comment allez-vous ?d. ( = cost) coûter• how much is it? combien ça coûte ?e. ( = equal) fairef.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• to be cold/hot/hungry/thirsty/ashamed/right/wrong avoir froid/chaud/faim/soif/honte/raison/tort━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Note how French makes the person, not the part of the body, the subject of the sentence in the following.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━g. (with age) avoir• how old is he? quel âge a-t-il ?► to be + -ing━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► French does not distinguish between simple and continuous actions as much as English does.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I'm coming! j'arrive !• what have you been doing this week? qu'est-ce que tu as fait cette semaine ?• will you be seeing her tomorrow? est-ce que vous allez la voir demain ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► être en train de + infinitive emphasizes that one is in the middle of the action.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I haven't got time, I'm cooking the dinner je n'ai pas le temps, je suis en train de préparer le repas━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The imperfect tense is used for continuous action in the past.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► have/had been +... for/since━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► French uses the present and imperfect where English uses the perfect and past perfect.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I'd been at university for six weeks when my father got ill j'étais à l'université depuis six semaines quand mon père est tombé malade• he's a friend of yours, isn't he? c'est un ami à toi, n'est-ce pas ?• she wasn't happy, was she? elle n'était pas heureuse, n'est-ce pas ?• so it's all done, is it? tout est fait, alors ?• you're not ill, are you? tu n'es pas malade j'espère ?c. (in tag responses) they're getting married -- oh are they? ils vont se marier -- ah bon ?• he's going to complain about you -- oh is he? il va porter plainte contre toi -- ah vraiment ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• he's always late, isn't he? -- yes, he is il est toujours en retard, n'est-ce pas ? -- oui• is it what you expected? -- no it isn't est-ce que tu t'attendais à ça ? -- non━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The past participle in French passive constructions agrees with the subject.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The passive is used less in French than in English. It is often expressed by on + active verb.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• it is said that... on dit que...━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The reflexive can be used to describe how something is usually done.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━3. modal verb► am/are/is to + infinitivea. ( = will)• now the old lady has died, her house is to be sold maintenant que la vieille dame est décédée, sa maison va être mise en venteb. ( = must) you are to follow these instructions exactly tu dois suivre ces instructions scrupuleusementc. ( = should) he is to be pitied il est à plaindre• not to be confused with... à ne pas confondre avec...d. ( = be destined to) this was to have serious repercussions cela devait avoir de graves répercussionse. ( = can) these birds are to be found all over the world on trouve ces oiseaux dans le monde entiera. être ; ( = take place) avoir lieu• he is there at the moment, but he won't be there much longer il est là en ce moment mais il ne va pas rester très longtemps► there is/are ( = there exist(s)) il y a• here you are at last! te voilà enfin !• here you are! ( = take this) tiens (or tenez) !b. ► to have been (to a place)• where have you been? où étais-tu passé ?a. (weather, temperature) faire• it's fine/cold/dark il fait beau/froid/nuit• it's windy/foggy il y a du vent/du brouillard• it was then we realized that... c'est alors que nous nous sommes rendu compte que...• it was they who suggested that... ce sont eux qui ont suggéré que...• why is it that she is so popular? pourquoi a-t-elle tant de succès ?6. compounds* * *[biː, bɪ]1) gen êtreit's me —
2) ( in probability)were it not that... — si ce n'était que...
had it not been for Frank, I'd have missed the train — sans Frank j'aurais raté le train
3) ( phrases)let ou leave him be — laisse-le tranquille
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7 Usage note : be
I am tired= je suis fatiguéCaroline is French= Caroline est françaisethe children are in the garden= les enfants sont dans le jardinIt functions in very much the same way as to be does in English and it is safe to assume it will work as a translation in the great majority of cases.Note, however, that when you are specifying a person’s profession or trade, a/an is not translated:she’s a doctor= elle est médecinClaudie is still a student= Claudie est toujours étudianteThis is true of any noun used in apposition when the subject is a person:he’s a widower= il est veufButLyons is a beautiful city= Lyon est une belle villeFor more information or expressions involving professions and trades consult the usage note Shops, Trades and Professions.For the conjugation of the verb être see the French verb tables.Grammatical functionsThe passiveêtre is used to form the passive in French just as to be is used in English. Note, however, that the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject:the rabbit was killed by a fox= le lapin a été tué par un renardthe window had been broken= la fenêtre avait été casséetheir books will be sold= leurs livres seront vendusour doors have been repainted red= nos portes ont été repeintes en rougeIn spoken language, French native speakers find the passive cumbersome and will avoid it where possible by using the impersonal on where a person or people are clearly involved : on a repeint nos portes en rouge.Progressive tensesIn French the idea of something happening over a period of time cannot be expressed using the verb être in the way that to be is used as an auxiliary verb in English.The presentFrench uses simply the present tense where English uses the progressive form with to be:I am working= je travailleBen is reading a book= Ben lit un livreIn order to accentuate duration être en train de is used: je suis en train de travailler ; Ben est en train de lire un livre.The futureFrench also uses the present tense where English uses the progressive form with to be:we are going to London tomorrow= nous allons à Londres demainI’m (just) coming!= j’arrive!I’m (just) going!= j’y vais!The pastTo express the distinction between she read a newspaper and she was reading a newspaper French uses the perfect and the imperfect tenses: elle a lu un journal/elle lisait un journal:he wrote to his mother= il a écrit à sa mèrehe was writing to his mother= il écrivait à sa mèreHowever, in order to accentuate the notion of describing an activity which went on over a period of time, the phrase être en train de (= to be in the process of) is often used:‘what was he doing when you arrived?’‘he was cooking the dinner’= ‘qu’est-ce qu’il faisait quand tu es arrivé?’ ‘il était en train de préparer le dîner’she was just finishing her essay when …= elle était juste en train de finir sa dissertation quand …The compound pastCompound past tenses in the progressive form in English are generally translated by the imperfect in French:I’ve been looking for you= je te cherchaisFor progressive forms + for and since (I’ve been waiting for an hour, I had been waiting for an hour, I’ve been waiting since Monday etc.) see the entries for and since.ObligationWhen to be is used as an auxiliary verb with another verb in the infinitive ( to be to do) expressing obligation, a fixed arrangement or destiny, devoir is used:she’s to do it at once= elle doit le faire tout de suitewhat am I to do?= qu’est-ce que je dois faire?he was to arrive last Monday= il devait arriver lundi derniershe was never to see him again= elle ne devait plus le revoir.In tag questionsFrench has no direct equivalent of tag questions like isn’t he? or wasn’t it? There is a general tag question n’est-ce pas? (literally isn’t it so?) which will work in many cases:their house is lovely, isn’t it?= leur maison est très belle, n’est-ce pas?he’s a doctor, isn’t he?= il est médecin, n’est-ce pas?it was a very good meal, wasn’t it?= c’était un très bon repas, n’est-ce pas?However, n’est-ce pas can very rarely be used for positive tag questions and some other way will be found to express the extra meaning contained in the tag: par hasard ( by any chance) can be very useful as a translation:‘I can’t find my glasses’ ‘they’re not in the kitchen, are they?’= ‘je ne trouve pas mes lunettes’ ‘elles ne sont pas dans la cuisine, par hasard?’you haven’t seen Gaby, have you?= tu n’as pas vu Gaby, par hasard?In cases where an opinion is being sought, si? meaning more or less or is it? or was it? etc. can be useful:it’s not broken, is it?= ce n’est pas cassé, si?he wasn’t serious, was he?= il n’était pas sérieux, si?In many other cases the tag question is simply not translated at all and the speaker’s intonation will convey the implied question.In short answersAgain, there is no direct equivalent for short answers like yes I am, no he’s not etc. Where the answer yes is given to contradict a negative question or statement, the most useful translation is si:‘you’re not going out tonight’ ‘yes I am’= ‘tu ne sors pas ce soir’ ‘si’In reply to a standard enquiry the tag will not be translated:‘are you a doctor?’ ‘yes I am’= ‘êtes-vous médecin?’ ‘oui’‘was it raining?’ ‘yes it was’= ‘est-ce qu’il pleuvait?’ ‘oui’ProbabilityFor expressions of probability and supposition ( if I were you etc.) see the entry be.Other functionsExpressing sensations and feelingsIn expressing physical and mental sensations, the verb used in French is avoir:to be cold= avoir froidto be hot= avoir chaudI’m cold= j’ai froidto be thirsty= avoir soifto be hungry= avoir faimto be ashamed= avoir hontemy hands are cold= j’ai froid aux mainsIf, however, you are in doubt as to which verb to use in such expressions, you should consult the entry for the appropriate adjective.Discussing health and how people areIn expressions of health and polite enquiries about how people are, aller is used:how are you?= comment allez-vous?( more informally) comment vas-tu?( very informally as a greeting) ça va?are you well?= vous allez bien?how is your daughter?= comment va votre fille?my father is better today= mon père va mieux aujourd’huiDiscussing weather and temperatureIn expressions of weather and temperature faire is generally used:it’s cold= il fait froidit’s windy= il fait du ventIf in doubt, consult the appropriate adjective entry.Visiting somewhereWhen to be is used in the present perfect tense to mean go, visit etc., French will generally use the verbs venir, aller etc. rather than être:I’ve never been to Sweden= je ne suis jamais allé en Suèdehave you been to the Louvre?= est-ce que tu es déjà allé au Louvre?or est-ce que tu as déjà visité le Louvre?Paul has been to see us three times= Paul est venu nous voir trois foisNote too:has the postman been?= est-ce que le facteur est passé?The translation for an expression or idiom containing the verb to be will be found in the dictionary at the entry for another word in the expression: for to be in danger see danger, for it would be best to … see best etc.This dictionary contains usage notes on topics such as the clock, time units, age, weight measurement, days of the week, and shops, trades and professions, many of which include translations of particular uses of to be.
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